I do, and I don't think it's because I write (or--given my current output--wrote) it better than others do, but because, beyond the surface technical facility, the value of light verse (usually its humor) is, more than that of other poetry, a matter of taste. Since we tend (yes?) to write to our own taste, I assume most light versers similarly prefer their own.

[I should maybe clarify that I don't mean I would fill an anthology of light verse with my own stuff but that, for instance, in most issues of Light Quarterly I didn't find many poems I liked as well as my own contributions. The same is far from true regarding other sorts of poems.]

I'm prompted now to ask by Jayne's question in Drills and Amusements: Do you like Clerihews? For me, Clerihews, maybe because most of them require less technical facility than other light verse forms, exaggerate the effect. My own Clerihews tickle me, some greatly; those of others tend to bore me. There are exceptions, of course. Because I'd hate to be misunderstood, I'll repeat myself: this doesn't lead me to believe that I write better Clerihews than others do, only that mine are better tailored to my own taste in humor.

I may be exceptional, but for me the answer is no. I struggle with light verse; I attempt funny and end up dark. So I'm happy to read other people's! Good on all of ya. If I weren't about to run out the door, I'd grab my R.P. Lister now, or my Updike collected.

Editing back to make it clearer that I really am answering Simon's question as asked: No, I don't find it true that my own light verse is better tailored to my own taste. It may be that I have less evidence to go on because I only write light once in a while.

Well, I can't believe I am not the Light Poet Laureate of anywhere, but, yes, I mostly prefer my own light verse. Now you've got me thinking whose other light verse I like. But we better not get into that

I write more light verse than any other kind of poetry and if I'm starting a poem from scratch, as it were, then yes, I pander to my own taste in humour, but many D & A competitions involve trying to think up a funny premise that may not be on my radar at all! That makes things more difficult . . .

. . . and that's when I'm far more impressed with the work of Brian Allgar, Basil Ransome-Davis, Bill Greenwell, Melissa Balmain, Roger Slater, Ed Conti, Rob Stuart, to name but a few, . . . than I am with my own!

I probably write more light verse than anything else - or lightish verse, to be more correct - but many of my poems can't decide which they are, and I often tend to combine both approaches in the same poem, so that neither I nor the listener/reader knows exactly what I'm after. (A little like I am in person, I suspect.)

As a pure lighter-than-air verse writer I don't regard myself as consistently, or even inconsistently, good Instead, I try to find a voice which mixes humor and drama and seriosity and sarcasm and a dozen other attitudes, and sometimes it's funnier than others, and when it works I can usually tell it, and when it doesn't work I can depend on people like you to tell me so.

There are lots of writers of light verse whose works I go back to over and over because I find it so delightful. I re-read Dorothy Parker, Wendy Cope, Gail White, Julie Kane, Melissa Balmain, Sophie Hannah, J. V. Cunningham, W. S. Gilbert, Ed Shacklee, and quite a few others. On the other hand, there are many different kinds of light verse, and I am not equally amused by all of them. My own tastes lean toward the witty and satirical, so that kind of verse is the kind I read most often. I will admit that I don't like equally everything the above-mentioned writers have written, but the things I like most I tend to like more than my own work, so I go back to them to remind myself of what the best light verse looks like and just to give myself a laugh. Light verse is a form of self-medication. It always makes me feel better afterwards.